Menlo Park Criterium

Today was the Menlo Park Criterium. The Cat 3 race was to be 45 minutes, but was cut down to 30 minutes due to crashes (yes plural) in the earlier races - more on that below...

We had about 80 - 90 in the Cat 3 event. Active Athlete/Squadra Ovest had 5 in this race, Carmi, Murat, Ryan, Geoff and myself. Unfortunately, Aaron, Dino and Dan could not join us due to the earlier mentioned crashes. I should also mention that we were able to race in our new kits (arrived yesterday) and they look sweet!

This race stayed together for the most part. There was a decent headwind on the Start/Finish straight that helped kill the breakaway attempts. I did get out with 3 others for about a lap and a half, but a prime killed that attempt. Ryan was on the case though and jumped around everyone to snatch up the prime. Other than that there really were not any other breakaways. The race came down to a mass sprint and I was able to pull in 14th...not bad, but I should have done much better - I felt way to good towards the end.



OK, so here's the deal on the crashes. Promoters and race set up peeps, pay attention. Please try not to build the announcer's booth ON the road...it creates a nasty bottleneck. I'm showcasing my superior Microsoft Paint skills with the below picture. The viewpoint is from about 1,000 ft up, looking straight down on the Start/Finish line. Ideally, the two rectangles (booth and the structure that helps hold the overhead banner) should be off of the road. If you can't do that, then at least use many more cones and make the bottleneck much more gradual and have it start much earlier. That's my $0.02.Aaron and Dino were both involved in a nasty crash when a racer tried to advance a bit too far just before this bottleneck...when he swung back in it caused chaos. Aaron's body took it hard and Dino's bike bit the dust, so please pour a little out of your water bottle on your next ride in their honor. I'm hoping that they both make speedy recovery's and get back racing soon. I mentioned that Dan didn't race either...he was waiting for Aaron's call from the hospital and had to skip out on the Cat 3 race.